According to Shadow And Act, 19-year-old Philip Youmans became the youngest director ever to win the Tribeca Film Festival’s Founders Awards of a best narrative feature.
What We Know:
- Youmans is not only the youngest filmmaker to win the Founders Award, but he’s also made history by becoming the first black director to win the award, Shadow And Act stated.
- The set of Youmans film, Burning cane is among the cane fields of rural Louisiana and it tells the story of a deeply religious mother who struggles to reconcile her convictions of faith with the love she had for her troubled son.
- Youmans told Indiewire, “I wanted to make sure that I didn’t demonize them or their beliefs, which came from a maturity I had to grow into before making the film.” It was important to him that he humanized their experiences and, in doing so, come to terms with his lifelong struggles with religion.
- Prior to the film Youmans was anxious knowing that his deeply religious family (especially his mother) who would be seeing the film for the first time would react to it. Youmans stated, “I was kind of horrified, but what I do hope that everyone who sees it takes from it, is not my issues with the church, but to see the human stories, and the cyclical nature if destructive behavior.”
- Youmans describes himself as “probably agnostic.” At the same time, he has admitted that he’s still working through it all. He stated, “I just stopped having these discussions with my mother. Although I think she and the rest of my immediate family are coming to terms with the fact that I think differently and that it’s ok.”
Youmans would like to show his audience the childhood experiences he endured in the Southern Baptist church and how it can have total control on the church’s immense influence over its community.
